Kimchi
Napa cabbage or radish, salt, chilli, garlic and time. The everyday Korean lactic ferment.
A Korean table already teaches the atlas: kimchi at almost every meal, doenjang in soups, yoghurt in fridges.
Trust your senses for household jars. Rotting smells, strange colours and swollen tins are stop signs. When unsure, discard.
Everyday uses
Doenjang
Soybean paste aged with moulds and bacteria. A spoon seasons soup; it is food, not a capsule.
Yoghurt
Warm milk plus a starter pair. Live cultures if not heat-killed after. Breakfast, not a prescription.
Bread rise
Yeast CO2 lifts dough. Sourdough adds lactic tang beside the yeast.
Pickles and vinegar
Lactic pickles and acetic vinegar are cousins.
Know when to stop
Unexpected fuzzy mould on yoghurt or a swollen tin is not more fermentation. Discard.
Flavour first. Medicine never.
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